In Father James Martin's recent book, Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life, he notes that some of Jesus' parables had a wry sense of humor underlying them, albeit the context (crucial for any comic) has been lost over centuries of translations. But if you think of it, a camel squeezing through a needle's eye is Monty Python-level absurd. The New Age artist Laraaji (born Edward Larry Gordon) understands such a spiritual dichotomy, offering workshops not just in deep listening but also in deep laughter. His blog even summarizes his skill-set as so: "Celestial Music Performances and Seriously Playful Laughter Workshops."
For most music fans, Laraaji remains best known for recording an ambient album with Brian Eno after the latter happened upon the artist improvising on zither in Washington Square Park. The resultant record, Ambient 3: Day of Radiance, catapulted Laraaji into the upper echelons of that then-nascent genre, even if albums like 1978's Celestial Vibration (reissued by Soul Jazz) and 1987's Essence/ Universe transcend all musical nametags, vitamin stores, lucid dreaming practices, and crystal healing sessions to send its listeners up into the ether.
And like other similarly inclined noisemakers (including but not limited to Emeralds, Oneohtrix Point Never, White Rainbow, and Hatchback), when New York's Blues Control began to explore psychedelic music from the chakra-relaxing end of the musical spectrum, it led them directly to Laraaji's back catalog. Similarly inclined to melodic improvisation, percussive playing, hazy instrument treatments, and sprawling soundscapes-- as evidenced on previous albums like Local Flavor and*"Puff"*-- it makes a strange sort of sense that Blues Control would reach out to Laraaji for a collaborative album released as part of the RVNG label's ongoing FRKWYS series.
Sonically, it makes for an exquisite follow-up to the previous entry. Recorded in an upstate studio over the course of a single winter's day, the four tracks that constitute the LP (not to mention the sprawling bonus tracks available via digital download and-- in a nod to the New Age genre-- cassette) feel of a piece. Blues Control's telltale murk is evident from the start of "Awakening Day", somehow discombobulating and evocative, full of echoing percussion and effervescent melodies from Russ Waterhouse's six-string and Lea Cho's electric keyboard. It actually takes a while before Laraaji's strummed zither rises to the surface, only to have the elegant track slowly dissolve into sounds of running water and trickling percussion.
Laraaji's effects-laden strings kick off the 11-minute exploration "Light Ships", as do his bellowing vocal improvisations. Piano and zither ebb and rise like oceanic tides, but soon that deep voice of Laraaji's turns into echoing laughter. Another belly laugh emanates from Laraaji on the half-hour bonus track "Somebody Scream", and there's also a chuckle as the droning closer "Freeflow" fades from view. From where does such mirth arise? There are no definite answers, but surely the body-moving drum shuffle that leads into "City of Love" will startle more than a few listeners as the collaboration somehow moves from Earl Young-worthy Philly disco into cascading kalimba and weightless ambiance into the sort of noise gurgle that Blues Control are expert at. Across the four tracks though, it soon becomes hard to distinguish the two separate entities at play, which by this point is to be expected. As the FRKWYS series continues to make evident, the perceived generation gap between bustling avant-garde noise musicians and their more steadfast New Age elder statesmen is-- funnily enough-- narrow indeed.
